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Abstract:
Simulation plays an important role in the development, testing and evaluation of new robotic applications, reducing implementation time, cost and risk. For much of the robotics community, the open-source Gazebo robot simulator has emerged as the de facto standard environment for prototyping and testing robotic systems. While Gazebo offers strong support for terrestrial, aerial and space robotics applications, less support is available for marine applications involving vehicles at and below the water surface. To address this deficiency, we present the Virtual RobotX (VRX) simulation, a general purpose open-source development and testing tool, based on Gazebo, capable of approximating the behavior of unmanned surface vessels operating in complex ocean environments. We highlight the application of these capabilities using the VRX challenge reference implementation, a new simulation-based robot competition designed to complement the physical Maritime RobotX Challenge.
Date of Conference: 27-31 Oct. 2019
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 20 January 2020
ISBN Information:
Print on Demand(PoD) ISSN: 0197-7385
INSPEC Accession Number: 19283135
Publisher: IEEE
Conference Location: Seattle, WA, USA

I. Introduction

The open-source Virtual RobotX (VRX) simulator

https://bitbucket.org/osrf/vrx/

is designed to support the development, testing and evaluation of unmanned surface vehicles operating in ocean environments. VRX extends the Gazebo robot simulator through the addition of new domain-specific elements including environmental models, vessel dynamics representations, sensor emulation and general purpose ocean object models. The new capabilities featured in the VRX simulator include:

Wave representations, based on ocean spectra, to influence vessel motion, visual rendering and sensor feedback.

Water surface visual representation, including approximation of reflection and refraction.

Stochastic wind speed representation to influence vessel motion.

Parameterized six degree-of-freedom surface vessel model.

Approximation of buoyancy forces on geometric objects to simulate floating objects.

Lidar (3D) simulation, including interaction with water surface.

A configurable propulsion system with a parameterized non-linear thrust model.

References

References is not available for this document.